


Eighteen years pushed to the ledge

by renecdote



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Crisis, Gen, Internal Conflict, allusions to self-harm, allusions to suicidal thoughts, but without the comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 06:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11777589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: It's been a couple of months since Tim's had a proper existential crisis; he was long overdue.





	Eighteen years pushed to the ledge

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so it's been a while since I've posted anything but I couldn't get this out of my head. Based largely on Robin #46 and a few other comic moments / headcanon I've seen around on Tumblr lately. Also my own ongoing existential crisis of sorts, and if I'm suffering why not make my favourite characters suffer too.
> 
> Please take note of warnings in the tags because while there is nothing explicit, this one is pretty angsty. Only briefly edited, so apologies for any mistakes.

The sun has long since faded to smoggy darkness but the rooftop is still warm beneath his cheek despite the chill that is creeping into the air. He's not in uniform, not on the job. He's not even sure why he's here except that his skin had itched with the need to get out, run, escape, or- 

Or do something stupid. Something else to make everything just _stop_  for a minute so he could catch his breath. 

It's been a couple of months since Tim's had a proper existential crisis; he was long overdue.

The concrete is rough against the soft pads of his fingers, the uneven surface catching at his skin as he drags his hand back and forth in lazy half-circles. His fingertips are starting to go numb from the repetitive motion so he presses a little harder, not quite enough to be painful, just enough to feel the bite of the crushed grains of rock. His mouth is sticky with the coppery taste of blood, his bottom lip torn open and stinging between his teeth. He pokes at it with his tongue. It doesn't really hurt anymore and he wonders, idly, whether that's a bad thing. He bites down harder, is rewarded by a brief flash of pain.

It's well into the evening and he's sure the Bats are already out and about but he doesn't wonder why nobody has stumbled across him even though he's not trying to hide; this is his patrol route, his territory. Even if there hadn't been some kind of commotion across town, Batman and Robin wouldn't be travelling across these rooftops.

Lying here, he's high enough that the rest of the world feels far away save for the occasional angry shout that drifts up from the streets below, but low enough that Gotham still looms above him, dwarfing him with her sheer size and presence. Over the last... hour? two? more? he's watched lights flicker on one-by-one in the towering skyscrapers around him, twinkling specks of life stretching up and up and up until they taper off into smoggy darkness. It's probably the closest you could ever get to stargazing in Gotham, he thinks, a city so polluted - by more than just the air - that even the universe shies away.

The universe has it right, he thinks. He should have gotten the hell out of here while he still had- What? Not a chance; the Wayne name gives him enough money and resources that he could go anywhere he wanted, and it's not like anyone would try to stop him if he set up base somewhere else. More like... a will. To do something, anything, other than follow the same patterns he's been following for the last five years of his life.

It's only because he's looking up that he sees the shadow swing around the edges of his vision, a glimmer of electric blue tumbling through the air before a quiet thump alerts him to a new presence on the rooftop. It doesn't make him feel better, not being alone. It used to.

"Hey little brother."

He flops his head to the other side, blinking up through long, tacky lashes at the costume-clad figure approaching him. Black and blue and a flash of glowing white wrapped up in endless grace and charisma. Nightwing settles on the rooftop beside him, arms crossed on top of his bent knees, and a bit of the hero melts away to reveal the concerned big brother underneath.

"Oracle said you never clocked on tonight," Dick says, the tension in his shoulders belying the lightness of his tone. "Whatcha doing up here?"

Tim shrugs, feels the catch of his shirt on the concrete. It's expensive, some kind of fine cotton, probably ruined. He doesn't care. Hardly the first thing he's ruined. Definitely not anywhere near the most valuable. And he doubts it will be the last.

"Batman once told me that it's not about fighting to win, it's about fighting until you can't fight anymore." It takes him a second to realise he's spoken, that those hollow, detached words were his. Dick is still wearing the damn mask but he doesn't need to see his eyes because he can feel the razor sharp gaze boring into the side of his head. "He didn't say it exactly like that," he continues, the words pushed out by a sudden compulsion to explain, to have someone listen. "But the point was the same; even if the world is imploding around you, don't give up."

Don't be consumed by doubts and anxieties and internal conflicts. Don't let how shitty the world is get to you. Don't be fucking  _human_. 

The weight of the eyes on him is like a thin layer of lead seeping across his skin, pressing him down, keeping him still, making his skin prickle in a strange, pointless defensiveness. "We were on this rooftop," he adds. As if that's going to give any context to what was one of many moments of self-doubt underscored by the crushing futility of trying to save people and not making a lick of difference because Gotham is a poisonous bog that sucks people down and never lets them see the light of a normal day again. "And I was... it had been a long day-" week, month, existence "...I think he was trying to be inspiring." 

It hadn't worked at the time because Tim had been an angsting teenager torn between two lives he wasn't even sure he wanted anymore and what's the point in stretching yourself thin when you're not even making a difference? When you get involved to make things _better_ but just end up making them _worse_? When people just. keep. dying.

Thinking back on the words now, he wants to laugh. Bitter and strangled because he hadn't believed in Bruce's dedication to The Mission but that hadn't stopped him from following his advice to a T. So much for doing his time as Robin then getting on with his normal, civilian life. He doesn't even know what the word normal  _means_ anymore. It's just one of those abstract things that _other people_ have. Like greener grass and better toys and perfect lives.

"Timmy..." Dick's gloved hand hovers an inch above his shoulder and the not-quite-contact, the constant distance between them these days, makes Tim grit his teeth against a frustrated scream. His brother reads the clenching of his jaw as rejection and backs off. His voice is a little choked when he says, "Talk to me, Tim. Tell me what... what you're thinking and feeling and... and I'll help. You just gotta tell me what's wrong."

Tim takes a deep breath in and feels the city's grim settle in his lungs. "I think..." He rolls his head back up to stare at the looming buildings and inky night sky. He zeroes in on a window about halfway up when a blurry figure walks through the frame, imagines a family sitting down to dinner, a smiling mother and a tired-but-loving father and a kid, maybe two, chattering about their day at school. The scene is happy but half-formed and when he closes his eyes and tries to chase it, it disintegrates into shattered fragments of razor-sharp glass that shred his skin on the way down. He opens his eyes and the curtains around the window have been pulled shut. He breathes in, counts to five, breathes out. "I think I'm done."

Done being a fighter.

Done being a hero.

Done being.

Batman would never give up. But Tim? Tim never wanted to be Batman.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Comments and kudos are love, or come yell at me on [Tumblr](http://tantalum-cobalt.tumblr.com/).


End file.
